RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


  • Celebrating People’s Freedom Doesn’t Require You to Celebrate the Ways They Use that Freedom

    Source: I Blog to Differ
    by David R Henderson

    “I received feedback from a friend that made me wonder if he had misunderstood my argument against compulsory labeling of foods’ ingredients. He referred me to a post that makes the case that seed oils are bad for our health. So I think it’s worthwhile to explore an issue that I discussed on EconLog back in January 2012. Here’s what I wrote: I’ve noticed in discussions–in person, on Facebook, and in blogs–how hard it is for most people to see that opposition to having the government subsidize or require activity X does not mean that one opposes activity X. … One can strongly object to the use of illegal drugs and yet think they should be legal. One can strongly object to U.S. taxpayers being forced to subsidize Israel’s government without being ‘anti-Israel.'” (12/29/25)

    https://davidrhenderson.substack.com/p/celebrating-peoples-freedom-doesnt

  • Trump, Treason, and the New York Times

    Source: JimBovard.com
    by James Bovard

    “On Tuesday, President Trump denounced the New York Times in a Truth Social post as a ‘serious threat to the National Security of our Nation’ and a ‘TRUE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE’ for publishing an article detailing Trump’s close personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. … That was the Times’s second recent treasonous offense. After the Times published a story on how 79-year-old Trump was ‘slowing down physically’ and ‘showing signs of fatigue’ in his second term … rump proclaimed that ‘it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’’ … Trump is using practically a mirror image of treason compared to the standard the Founding Fathers canonized.” (12/29/25)

    https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/12/29/trump-treason-and-the-new-york-times/

  • The New Surveillance State Is You

    Source: Wired
    by Andrew Couts

    “Privacy isn’t dead. Just ask Kristi Noem. The Department of Homeland Security secretary has spent 2025 trying to convince the American public that identifying roving bands of masked federal agents is ‘doxing’ — and that revealing these public servants’ [sic] identities is ‘violence.’ Noem is wrong on both fronts, legal experts say, but her claims of doxing highlight a central conflict in the current era: Surveillance now goes both ways. … ‘ICE watch’ groups have appeared across the country. Apps for tracking immigration enforcement activity have popped up on (then disappeared from) Apple and Google app stores. Social media feeds are awash in videos of unidentified agents tackling men in parking lots, throwing women to the ground, and ripping families apart. From Los Angeles to Chicago to Raleigh, North Carolina, neighbors and passersby have pulled out their phones to document members of their communities being arrested and vanishing into the Trump administration’s machinery.” (12/29/25)

    https://archive.is/f0nEZ

  • Trump’s Tariffs Run the Whiskey River Dry

    Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
    by Douglas E French

    “Jim Beam has been making whiskey for a long time, through thick and thin. But the Trump tariffs have shut down the venerable distillery. Bourbon Whiskey is a high-order (as Austrian economists would say) beverage due to the aging process required. Jim Beam is aged for four years in new charred oak barrels. Jim Beam Black is aged 7 years. … The uncertainty created by today’s tariffs will create scarcity (and higher prices) of lower order goods (in this case whiskey) in the future.” (12/29/25)

    https://mises.org/power-market/trumps-tariffs-run-whiskey-river-dry

  • The Winding Road to Prosperity

    Source: Law & Liberty
    by Asheesh Agarwal

    “Why, in the previous Millennium, did Europe come to dominate the world, rather than China, India, or some other region? How did the Catholic Church, the legal profession, and the fall of the Roman Empire all set the stage for Europe’s eventual global supremacy? Meanwhile, in today’s age of AI, rockets, and robots, how can societies continue to innovate and prosper, rather than stagnate and decay? In Two Paths to Prosperity, Joel Mokyr, a 2025 Nobel laureate and professor at Northwestern University, offers a compelling narrative.” (12/29/25)

    https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-winding-road-to-prosperity/

  • Systems of Trust

    Source: Foundation for Economic Education
    by Benjamin BH Ko

    ‘On the Isle of Lewis, crofters still work the old way: one man, two dogs, a flock and the Atlantic wind. Watching Leslie and his collies, Bruce and Jude, round up sheep across the moor, I was struck by how little command was needed. After a whistle and a word, Bruce and Jude’s instincts took care of the rest. It was order without control, and freedom within purpose. This is liberty properly understood.” (12/29/25)

    https://fee.org/articles/systems-of-trust/

  • To restore hope for families in poverty, let states lead on welfare reform

    Source: The Hill

    “The United States is a generous nation, and most agree that low-income households deserve help from their fellow Americans when times are tough. But that help should not inadvertently trap people in poverty and government dependence by disincentivizing healthy, working-age adults from working more hours, pursuing higher wages, or marrying out of fear of ending up financially worse off. … The need for reform is clear, as we recently argued in a report along with several colleagues. The solutions and how to enact them are less so. A common response is universal benefits or more government assistance higher up the income scale to allow for a more gradual phase out of benefits. But this approach creates more government dependence among American households rather than encouraging independence and hope. This would also require substantial new federal resources at a time when budget deficits are already unsustainable. That’s why we need a new approach that starts with the states.” (12/29/25)

    https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5664894-state-led-welfare-innovation/

  • Fewer Kids, More Admins? The Quiet Boom in K-12 Hiring That’s Pure Politics

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Corey A DeAngelis

    “New research strongly suggests teachers’ unions are driving the skyrocketing administrative bloat that’s sucking resources away from classrooms. By diverting additional funding toward hiring more people, they starve effective educators of the raises and support they need, all to pad their own power structures. Unions benefit enormously from inflating the number of employees in the system, turning public schools into top-heavy bureaucracies that serve adults — not our kids. Teachers’ union bosses gain in two major ways from the rapid expansion in administrative hiring — which also siphons resources away from teachers, students, and classrooms.” (12/29/25)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/fewer-kids-more-admins-the-quiet-boom-in-k-12-hiring-thats-pure-politics/